Offseason focuses for Streator include setting foundation, 3-man QB competition

As any good contractor will tell you, building requires a solid foundation.

That’s what first-year Streator head coach Jay Slone is trying to install this summer for the Bulldogs football program – something solid from which to build something special.

“A foundation and a culture,” the Bishop Mac and Valparaiso football product said during a morning practice session last week at Doug Dieken Stadium. “There’s been too much in what I’ve seen in the past and on film, it’s been, ‘Me, me, me.’ A running back scores, he looks at the crowd and beats his chest, it’s all about him. But it took 10 other guys for that play to score.

“What I’m trying to do is build a culture where we support each other and we’re happy to see someone else on the team win. Because if he wins, we win. If he scores, we score.

“So really, I’m just trying to build that culture right now. I think it’ll help in the long run.”

Slone began putting the pieces of his plan together shortly after his hiring back in January, leaving his position as an assistant in his hometown of Herscher, an Illinois Central Eight Conference rival of Streator’s. Despite being a relatively young head coach – Slone graduated high school from Bishop Mac just over a dozen years ago – the Bulldogs’ offseason practices this summer have featured a renewed structure and focus, a fact not lost on the players themselves.

“Right now, we’re really just trying to make sure we have high accountability across the team,” said junior Jerrad Clark. “We’re making sure we’re supporting each other and making sure we’re coming together as a team as well.”

Clark is part of three-man competition for the starting quarterback spot along with fellow juniors Sam LeRette and Sharonn Morton. All three have spent time this summer behind center, all three have been impressive, all three can contribute heavily from other skill positions should they not win the QB job, and all seem to be on the same page managing the competition.

“I feel like whoever we put in that backfield at quarterback is going to handle the team and lead us to victory really well,” Morton said.

“I feel like whoever’s back there we can trust, for sure,” LeRette said. “We can all play multiple positions, so we’re not really affected by it. We’re just working every day, getting better.”

Clark said the QB competition itself is fueling the Bulldogs’ dedication to improve on last season’s .333 winning percentage and make a run at Streator’s first IHSA playoff berth since 2017.

“[Competition] makes you better,” Clark said. “We know we can get our spot taken from a couple errors, so it makes you play better, makes you do your job.”

Streator’s 2025 schedule opens Friday, Aug. 29, with a visit from Decatur Eisenhower. The Bulldogs won last year’s season-opener in Decatur 20-12, but were victorious only twice more the remainder of the season.

From there, the Bulldogs visit rival Ottawa in Week 2, then go to Braidwood to open conference play against the other ICE team with a new head coach, Reed-Custer.

It’s ICE games from there on out except for Week 8. Streator’s old North Central Illinois Conference/Northern Illinois Big 12 rival, the Dixon Dukes – now a perennial playoff team since parting conference ways with the Bulldogs – visit Doug Dieken Stadium in the penultimate week of the regular season Oct. 17.